New Options & Pricing from ScreenConnect

[JaredBusch]

As my current license is about to expire, I looked into the rates again.

As soon as I plugged in my current license key, it immediately showed the renewal price as expected. It also showed that I can still add technician licenses.

Since I only need to pay $210 to renew, I will most likely do so.

On the other hand I find the 4 concurrent session limit to be very restrictive now that I have been using ScreenConnect for 2 years. I am seriously spoiled by how smooth and easy it is to use. I wish I could have more sessions open at once at least twice a month.

The new license pricing scheme seems much higher at first glance.

But that is because I am comparing it to the old license. There are key differences between the licenses that play into this.

The original license was strictly a per concurrent session limit. You bought licenses in order to cover the number of concurrent sessions you needed to get your job done. You have 5 guys that are always in 2 machines? You need 10 licenses. I my case it was initially only myself and we went with a 2 license version. Then I got comfortable with it and how easy it was and I really wanted more sessions available to me but honestly it was not worth the $600 to get 2 more licenses. But then I hired a part timer and I did need it, so we upgraded to a 4 concurrent session license. Now, a year later, I am continually running into concurrent session issues. As I only have 2 people actively using ScreenConnect all day, we are making due with this limit instead of paying for more licensing.

The new license model, on the other hand, is a technician model. You buy an initial license that cover 3 technicians (to my understanding, simultaneously connected technicians). But each of these 3 technicians can have 10 sessions open to various machines. This is a huge difference in functionality.

Under the original licensing, getting 10 concurrent sessions would cost $2500. The difference is under the old license, you could have 10 different people all in one session where the new license you can have 3 people each in 10 sessions (30 total).

The new pricing is certainly not a bad deal once you look at the numbers. For a single person shop, it certainly is a jump. You simply have to look at everything in perspective. For $2195, you still get the full usability of this software. Divide it up amongst your devices. Is the cost worth it then?

[stacksofplates]

I've never used ScreenConnect, and I'm probably going to sound like a moron but what's the advantage over something like Teamviewer or Usoris Viewer or others that allow things like task manager, cmd, etc without a desktop?

[JaredBusch]

@johnhooks said:

I've never used ScreenConnect, and I'm probably going to sound like a moron but what's the advantage over something like Teamviewer or Usoris Viewer or others that allow things like task manager, cmd, etc without a desktop?

Well originally, it was price compared to features. Still is really since $2195 one time is a lot cheaper than some of the alternatives.

Of note though, ScreenConnect is not a RMM like the tools you are describing can be. It does have remote command though.

[stacksofplates]

@JaredBusch said:

@johnhooks said:

I've never used ScreenConnect, and I'm probably going to sound like a moron but what's the advantage over something like Teamviewer or Usoris Viewer or others that allow things like task manager, cmd, etc without a desktop?

Well originally, it was price compared to features. Still is really since $2195 one time is a lot cheaper than some of the alternatives.

Of note though, ScreenConnect is not a RMM like the tools you are describing can be. It does have remote command though.

Thanks!

[FATeknollogee]

Any chance of getting a better price than $2,195?
Who do we speak to?

[JaredBusch]

@fateknollogee said in New Options & Pricing from ScreenConnect:

Any chance of getting a better price than $2,195?
Who do we speak to?

NTG used to have a thing. Dunno if they still do. Ask @Minion-Queen

[FATeknollogee]

@JaredBusch Did you end up moving your SC install from 2012 R2 to Linux?

[JaredBusch]

@fateknollogee said in New Options & Pricing from ScreenConnect:

@JaredBusch Did you end up moving your SC install from 2012 R2 to Linux?

Yes.

[FATeknollogee]

Any one have instructions on how to add Lets Encrypt SSL to "on-prem" SC install?

[FATeknollogee]

@jaredbusch said in New Options & Pricing from ScreenConnect:

@fateknollogee said in New Options & Pricing from ScreenConnect:

@JaredBusch Did you end up moving your SC install from 2012 R2 to Linux?

Yes.

You notice any performance difference or was it more of a licensing cost issue?

[JaredBusch]

@fateknollogee said in New Options & Pricing from ScreenConnect:

Any one have instructions on how to add Lets Encrypt SSL to "on-prem" SC install?

Mine runs behind an Nginx proxy, so no.

[JaredBusch]

@fateknollogee said in New Options & Pricing from ScreenConnect:

@jaredbusch said in New Options & Pricing from ScreenConnect:

@fateknollogee said in New Options & Pricing from ScreenConnect:

@JaredBusch Did you end up moving your SC install from 2012 R2 to Linux?

Yes.

You notice any performance difference or was it more of a licensing cost issue?

It was all because of licensing. Actually the performance is worse on Linux (I used CentOS 7 at the time) than it is on Windows. This is because they develop this product on Windows with ASP.net and then ported it to Linux using Mono.

[FATeknollogee]

@jaredbusch said in New Options & Pricing from ScreenConnect:

Mine runs behind an Nginx proxy, so no.

Is this the "preferred" way to run it?

[JaredBusch]

@fateknollogee said in New Options & Pricing from ScreenConnect:

@jaredbusch said in New Options & Pricing from ScreenConnect:

Mine runs behind an Nginx proxy, so no.

Is this the "preferred" way to run it?

Well because I run a large number of things in a colo behind a single IP, I have to do it this way. If I was running this on a VPS like Vultr, I would not likely bother with the proxy unless adding SSL was complicated or something.

[JaredBusch]

@FATeknollogee I knew ScreenConnect did not use Apache or Nginx, and so yeah using LE will not work out well.

So I just did a quick bit of looking, you have to use their tool to generate a CSR and such.
https://docs.connectwise.com/ConnectWise_Control_Documentation/On-premises/Advanced_setup/SSL_certificate_installation
This is a pain in the ass.

So, here is what I would do.

• Install ScreenConnect and leave on default ports (8040 for HTTP and 8041 Relay).
  • Remember the relay data is always encrypted by the app itself, there is no cert there.
• Run Certbot in standalone mode to get your LE cert
• Install Nginx on the same box and configure
  • forward 80 to 443
  • setup 443 to use the LE cert and forward 443 to http://127.0.0.1:8040
• Setup a cron job to run certbot renew daily.

[FATeknollogee]

@JaredBusch Thanks for the detailed info!!

[Mike Davis]

I wish there was just a little more competition in this area...

[Alex Sage]

@mike-davis me too